


Five Times Sabine Met Luke

by Charity_Angel



Category: Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, Star Wars Episode V: Empire Strikes Back, Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi, Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: F/M, Slow Romance, Space family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-30
Updated: 2016-11-03
Packaged: 2018-08-28 01:19:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8425147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Charity_Angel/pseuds/Charity_Angel
Summary: In which the title is fairly self-explanatory.





	1. Curiosity

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Finding Family](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8361664) by [Merfilly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/pseuds/Merfilly). 



> Merfilly is entirely to blame for me even _thinking_ this one. But, the tag didn't exist, so, yay? New pairing?

Alliance bases were getting worse. Admittedly, Dantooine had been a step up from Atollion, and Yavin hadn’t been too bad either, she supposed, but Hoth? She was never going to be able to persuade Kanan now.

He was down enough on Alliance bases, now that they were getting bigger and more organised, more paramilitary than ever. (He didn’t like the attention he drew on Alliance bases, he said. She’d tried suggesting that maybe he could at least try to act blind around other people, but apparently that was unreasonable.) But _Hoth_? A planet so cold she was wearing winter clothing indoors? No way.

Not even the rumours about the Jedi pilot hero who blew up the Death Star had piqued enough interest among the Spectres. She had thought that maybe, just maybe, that would have gotten Ezra’s attention, or Hera’s. But they were staying stubbornly… wherever they were. Sabine hadn’t heard from them for a while. It was unsettling, but Admiral Sato wasn’t worried. They were doing some deep cover thing, which was supposed to reassure her, but she knew how those kinds of thing usually ended.

Still, maybe if the Alliance _was_ home to an out and proud Jedi, if Sabine could corroborate the rumour, then maybe Kanan and Ezra would come and meet him. Maybe even Rex would. She hadn’t seen him for too long – he had been stationed on Yavin 4, but he wasn’t loving Hoth either. Apparently he had complained of old bones and aching joints. Sabine suspected he was back on Seelos with his brothers, and that he had lost hope after jumping after every little hint of a Jedi for years after Ahsoka. But, if she told him there was a real, live Jedi on Hoth, he would come. Because he still had a need to serve wired into him, and a need to atone to the Jedi for what his brothers had done. His men, specifically.

That was the reason she had found herself in the hangar, perched on the top of an X-Wing, watching a blond kid about Ezra’s age work with a lightsabre and a practice drone. It wasn’t out of idle curiosity – it was for Kanan and Ezra, and for Rex.

The practice wasn’t the best performance but, from the whispers, she had determined that he was alone, that his master had died on the Death Star and that they hadn’t been training all that long. He was blocking most of the drone’s shots, but it wasn’t exactly on a high setting.

Maybe she should do what Chopper had done for Ezra occasionally, and offer some ‘assistance’? Was that fair? (Was war fair?) Or would it be for her own amusement, like it was when Chopper did it?

No, she decided: he needed an incentive to step up his training. Just in case an Inquisitor reared its ugly head. Or Vader, for that matter.

She made sure her weapon was set to stun, and fired once before dropping off the ship and running for cover.

He deflected the shot, but immediately disengaged the droid and shoved his blindfold up. His eyes scanned for her.

“Who’s there?”

Really? Going to have to ask better questions than that.

“Is that you, Han?”

Not necessarily a better question, but at least the kid seemed to have at least one friend who would take pot shots at him. That would keep him on his toes.

Speaking of, she fired again, and leaped away, landing on the top of a stack of fuel drums.

He made a reasonable attempt to deflect the bolt back at her. It was as well he missed, really, and hit her original hiding place instead of her new one. The stun bolt probably wouldn’t do any harm, but it was always better to be safe than sorry around fuel drums. Especially when she was standing on top of them instead of intentionally blowing them up.

“Not bad, Kid,” she praised. “Needs a little work, but you’ll get there.”

The kid extinguished his lightsabre and stared at her, trying to figure her out.

“You… you’ve seen a lightsabre before?”

Sabine shrugged. “Yeah. Been a while. My vod’ika was worse than you when he started out.”

She hadn’t intended to use the Mando’a word – tried not to in company. Mandalorians off of Mandalore were generally regarded with suspicion. Mando’a was for her and Rex, in private. Yet, it had slipped out.

“What’s ‘vod’ika’?”

She grinned down at him. “Catch me and I’ll tell you.”

It was a gamble – Ezra probably could have done it at this point in his training, but he had been surviving on the streets for years at that point. This kid was well-fed and clearly had someone caring for him – he hadn’t _needed_ to learn like Ezra had.

She bounded away, leaping from drum to X-Wing to crate to freighter. The kid pursued her, but he was slow, clumsy, even. It was more of a challenge to keep him only a little way behind her as she made her escape into the air vent she had entered the hangar through. The kid wouldn’t fit, she knew, and she gave him a little wave as she slid into the cool metal vent.


	2. Introduction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Luke and Sabine are introduced by a mutual acquaintance.

Leia found her in the commissary, the kid trailing behind her like an eager puppy. His eyes bugged when he saw Sabine sat at the table already.

“Hey,” Sabine greeted her cheerfully. She’d gotten to know the princess fairly well over the last few years, and counted her as a friend.

Leia’s smile seemed a little forced as she replied, but that was understandable. Sabine’s life hadn’t exactly been a picnic so far, but at least Mandalore was still there, if she chose to return. (She wouldn’t, not before it was liberated. Neither it nor Concordia were places she wanted to see under the yoke of the Empire.) Alderaan… Leia had lost everything between one breath and the next, and she was still standing tall.

“Sabine, I wanted to introduce you to Luke,” she said as they sat. “He’s new around here, but he’s got some interesting skills that we could use.”

Sabine smirked at the kid. “I’ve seen.”

She held out her hand. “Sabine Wren. I’m… what are we classing me as now? Intelligence?”

“A law unto yourself,” Leia corrected with a wry smile. “You and the rest of the Spectres. Luke, Sabine does a lot of infiltration and undercover work.”

“With that hair?”

Sabine grinned. “What? I dye it if I need to be boring. And you would be the Jedi the base is buzzing about.”

“Luke Skywalker,” the kid said. “But I don’t know about Jedi. I’m not trained.”

“You looked like you were doing okay,” she said. Self-doubt never helped, she knew. It had held Kanan back for long enough, had nearly derailed Ezra’s training before it had even begun.

And then it clicked. Leia had set this up, the sneaky little minx. Sabine would approve, if she weren’t the target.

Leia blinked innocently as Sabine shot her a glare that said perfectly that she understood the trap she had been manoeuvred into.

“Fine, fine. Luke, I have some experience with Jedi. In their absence, would you accept my help? I’m _not_ a Jedi. I’m barely even a little bit Force-sensitive. Not enough for the Inquisitors to worry about.”

Luke was nodding throughout her excuses, like he wasn’t even listening. “Yes. Please. I want to be good at this, like my father was. Like Ben was.”

There was a layer of sadness in his voice, and in his eyes. It was the same kind of sadness she heard when Kanan talked about his master.

She made sure that she caught his eyes and gave him a smile. “You’ll get there,” she assured him. “You’ll make them proud.”


	3. Injury

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Sabine gets emotional.

Sabine couldn’t believe it when she heard. It couldn’t be true, could it? Luke was back?

He had disappeared in the aftermath of Hoth, and there had been some worrying moments when she had thought he might be dead. But there was no debris from his X-Wing, no remnants of the R2 unit that had adopted him before Sabine had met him. And Leia had seemed adamant that Luke was alive. Leia had something of the Jedi about her sometimes – something that reminded her more of Ezra than Kanan – and Rex had just smiled mysteriously when she had mentioned it to him.

Maybe Luke had found Kanan, or the mysterious Master Yoda. Someone who could fill in the bits of his training that Sabine just couldn’t help him with.

But, whatever he had been doing these last few weeks, he was here, now, in Sickbay, and she wanted – _needed_ – to be there for him.

She skidded in, fearing the worst. But he was sat up, conscious and talking to Leia while the medics worked on his right hand.

No, not his hand. Because his hand wasn’t there. They were working on what was left of his arm. A lightsabre wound, if she was any judge.

But he was alive, and he was looking over Leia’s shoulder at her, smiling despite a tightness in his eyes that suggested of hardships she had yet to know of.

Sabine launched herself across the room, throwing her arms around Luke’s neck. She buried her head into his neck as her emotions threatened to bubble over into something embarrassing.

“Don’t you _dare_ leave me like that again,” she said, her voice shaking.

His left hand threaded itself into her blonde-and-blue hair, holding her tight.

“I won’t,” he swore, his voice gentle in her ear, pitched just for her. “I won’t.”


	4. Fathers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Luke meets someone important to Sabine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mando'a words are hover-able, if you can hover. If not, they're translated at the bottom of the page.

Sabine had a whole new level of respect for Hera. She felt like she was moping, and wondered how Hera had kept herself sane whenever Kanan disappeared.

This disappearance had, at least, been planned. They had discussed that Luke needed to go back to Dagobah, to finish his Jedi training, just as soon as they had rescued Han.

Now, that had been an interesting undercover mission. Not least because she had discovered a new loathing for Hutts, but she had discovered what Rex would have looked like had he aged normally.

That had broken her heart, when she had realised that the guy in the beskar’gam was a clone. He had not been happy when the droids arrived with Luke’s message, had muttered to himself about traitor jetiise, and why wouldn’t they just die and leave him in peace. He had begged Jabba for the chance to avenge his father’s death on this last Jedi.

Rex had been _gorgeous_. He was still a handsome man, but time had robbed him of too much youth. He was younger than Kanan but physically about twice that, and that was just deeply unfair.

At least Luke had said goodbye this time. And it had been an excellent goodbye, but she was still staring up at the stars, wondering when he would be back. How long she would have to wait this time. And how did Hera live like this?

“She finds things to do,” Rex said, coming to stand beside her and apparently reading her mind. He was sporting his customary pieces of armour, still battered and decorated with his battalion colours. His arm slid across her shoulders comfortingly. “And she knows that he can look after himself.”

Sabine sighed and rested her head against Rex’s sturdy shoulder. “Yeah. I guess so.”

He chuckled. “Trust me, your boy can look after himself too. You made sure of that.”

“You’ve never even met him,” Sabine said, rebelling against the platitudes, and well aware that she sounded like a petulant teenager.

“True,” he admitted, his eyes twinkling at her in the reflection in the window. “But I will, once he’s back. I reckon it won’t be too long, from the stories I’m hearing.”

His arm tightened around her, hugging her close. “And I might not have met _him_ , but I knew his mum and dad. I knew Master Kenobi. I even met Master Yoda a few times. And I know you. So, I might not have met him, but I know a lot of the people who helped shape Luke into the man he is.”

She sighed. “Will you tell him about his parents? How they were when you knew them?”

His posture changed as he contemplated her words, seeing that there was an unspoken meaning to them. His shoulders went rigid as he stood slightly taller. He dropped his arm and turned to face her.

“Sabine, what’s that supposed to mean?”

And her heart broke for him all over again as she realised he didn’t know. She’d assumed he must have done. But he’d missed Order Sixty-Six; he hadn’t taken part in the raid on the Jedi Temple. Hadn’t become part of Vader’s Fist. Why would he know? Why wouldn’t he have believed what everyone else did about that day? It was going to break her buir, knowing of this one last betrayal.

But he, of all people, deserved to know the truth. And so, in the quiet of the abandoned observation lounge, she told him about Anakin Skywalker. She watched his face go stony, and held him as his world broke apart and he cried for his lost Jedi brother.

 

.oOo.

 

Rex went to Endor. He stated in no uncertain terms that he kriffing well _was_ going to Endor, dodgy knees be damned. If this was going to be the last battle, then he damn well wasn't being sidelined. There should be _someone_ who had seen the beginning of this war there when it finally ended. Sabine had wanted to be on the Imp shuttle – and probably would have been had Luke not shown up at the last minute – but something told her that the fourth seat was his, not hers. She and Rex spent a lot of time doing lots of damage to the Imp forces instead. There was more scope for some explosive action where they were, anyway, and she did enjoy blowing things up.

The Alliance troops celebrated the victory. They celebrated harder when Luke returned and confirmed that the Emperor was dead; Vader’s final act.

Sabine and Leia both hugged him hard. He took their hands and led them into the stolen shuttle. His voice was soft, sad, as he explained that Anakin had still been alive when they had left the Death Star, but he had been too badly injured to make it even the short journey to the surface.

Leia – strong, confident Leia – folded, her knees giving way as she stared at the dark husk.

“He really was our father, wasn’t he?”

 _Our_ father?

Luke knelt at her side, his affection for her clear. “Yes, and it _was_ him at the end. He saved me, Leia. He saved everyone, but I think he did it for us.”

“Yeah, that sounds like him,” Rex’s voice said from the door. He too was looking at the remains of Darth Vader, his expression unreadable. Sabine reached out and took his hand in hers.

“Luke,” she said carefully, aware that this was a sensitive time for him. And Leia, by the sounds of it. “This is Rex. Rex, Luke Skywalker.”

Rex held out his hand to Luke. Sabine smiled when he took it in the Mando fashion.

“Sorry to interrupt,” Rex said, taking in both siblings. Half-siblings? “I, er, something told me I should.” He smiled wryly. “Been a while since I got faced with weird Force shit – I forgot what it felt like.”

Luke frowned, but Leia smiled. “Rex served in the Clone War,” she said. “With, um…”

“With your father,” Rex said bluntly. “Self-sacrificing di’kut. Never did have any survival instinct. I told him it would get him killed one day.”

He sighed. “Pyre’s traditional for Jedi; we should probably make a start. Unless you want some more time?”

Luke glanced over at the black armour, and shook his head. “No. That’s not him any more. He’s one with the Force. Leia?”

She pushed herself off the floor, using the bulkhead to steady herself. “I’m fine. It was just a shock seeing him, knowing it’s all over and we’ve won. I’ve never known anything but this war.”

Rex’s eyes glittered. “I was born to fight a war that ended before you two were born. You’ll find a place for yourself, vod’ad, just like I did.”

Leia didn’t even react to the unusual word, even though Sabine knew she didn’t speak a word of Mando’a. She probably assumed it was some term of affection and, in some ways, she wasn’t wrong. Luke, on the other hand, spoke plenty of Mando’a by now, and knew exactly what Rex had just called Leia.

“Luke, let’s find some wood for my last vod, here. And I hope you’ll indulge an old clone’s tradition – we shared stories of those who went to march ahead.”

Luke smiled. He wasn’t as free with his smiles as he used to be, but this one touched his eyes and made them shine in the dim light. “Of course. I would be honoured.”

Sabine watched as they headed out together. It wasn’t the meeting she had wanted for her ven’riduur and her buir, by any stretch of the imagination, but she’d take it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rex appeared, so lots of Mando'a stuffs:
> 
>  _beskar'gam_ = armour (lit. iron skin)  
>  _jetiise_ = Jedi (plural - singular is _jetii_ )  
>  _buir_ = parent (Mando'a is delightfully gender-neutral. Not necessarily a blood relation)  
>  _di'kut_ = idiot  
>  _vod_ = sibling (again, not necessarily a blood relative)  
>  _vod'ad_ = niece/nephew (lit. sibling's child)  
>  _ven'riduur_ = fiancé(e) (lit. future spouse)


	5. Aliit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Spectres come home

Rex and Leia had been optimistic, and probably wilfully so – the war wasn’t over. The Empire was broken, and was both more and less dangerous because of it.

The best thing for Sabine was that her family managed to come home for once. Hera and Zeb had swung by and picked up Kanan and Ezra, and they returned from the cold.

In her darkest moments, Sabine had wondered if she would ever see the Ghost again. And here it was, coming in to land neatly in the hangar.

Luke squeezed her hand tightly, his eyes shining. “I can sense them,” he said, sounding far too excited to be meeting his partner’s family. “They’re really Jedi, aren’t they? Your dad and your brother?”

She snickered at his childish glee. “Yeah, they are. And please call Kanan my dad to his face – it’ll be hilarious.”

At her other side, Rex laughed. “Depends how much you want to freak him out. Or make him glow with pride, depending on the timing.”

Luke looked a little worried. Sabine patted his arm. “Maybe save it for later?”

“Okay, sure. When he’s less likely to kill me just for looking at you.”

“I’d worry more about Ezra for that,” she told him cheerfully.

They were disembarking, stepping down into the hangar. Kanan and Hera were hand in hand, probably the most public display of affection she had ever seen from them. He wasn’t wearing his visor, and she lamented the loss of his jaig, until she saw them etched into his armour. Did that mean he had finally gotten over the scarring on his face? They had always said it wasn’t that bad, her and Hera, but the idiot blind man was self-conscious about his looks.

Ezra had come down the ramp laughing and joking with Zeb, but he was now running towards her, his face split with a broad grin, and his dark hair flying everywhere. She laughed as she let go of Luke and ran to meet him, wrapping her arms around her little brother. He was here. They were all here.

“Ezra, go easy,” Kanan warned, his voice light with joy. “Sabine needs to breathe sometime today.”

She pulled her arms tighter around Ezra, not caring that her vod’ika was hugging her too tightly, his shoulders broader and stronger than she remembered. He was here, and that was what mattered.

“Okay, break it up,” Hera said, laughing at the pair of them. “Momma wants a turn.”

Sabine joyously allowed herself to be passed from Ezra to Hera’s waiting arms, and she buried herself under Hera’s chin. Kanan enveloped them both. Zeb reached in and ruffled her hair as he passed. She knew he would be shaking his head at the ridiculousness of his family, and secretly loving the whole spectacle.

She felt Kanan’s attention shift, and looked up at him. His pale eyes were fixed on Luke, and Sabine extracted herself from Hera’s embrace, taking both of their hands in hers.

“Kanan, Hera, there’s someone I want you to meet.” She tugged them over to where Luke was still standing with Rex (who now had Ezra attached to his side, although the kid’s eyes were firmly fixed to the lightsabre hanging from Luke’s belt).

“Guys, this is Luke Skywalker.”

Luke bowed carefully to them both. “Captain Syndulla, Master Jarrus, I have heard a lot about you.”

Kana bowed too; something that took Sabine by surprise. She knew it was a Jedi thing, but Kanan tried to distance himself from Jedi culture as much as possible.

“Sabine has told us about you too,” he said. “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you, Padawan Skywalker.”

“Less of that,” Rex said. “Kid was knighted two weeks ago.”

“Please call me Luke.” 

Kanan was smiling. Hera was a little more reserved in her facial expression, but her lekku were curled up in a way Sabine hardly ever saw, betraying her.

Without speaking, without even looking at each other, they moved as one – Hera putting an arm and a lek over Sabine’s shoulder and guiding her away, Kanan drawing Luke off to one side.

They weren’t far enough away to stop Sabine from hearing:

“I feel that, for the sake of tradition, I should warn you about hurting my daughter,” Kanan said, his voice light with amusement. “But since it’s Sabine, I think she’s more likely to dismember you with your own lightsabre first.”

Sabine flinched; Luke was self-conscious about his amputated hand. Hera stopped immediately her face full of concern, but Luke was laughing. It was a little tense, but he was laughing.

“Yeah, she would.”

“Don’t think we won’t if she doesn’t,” Zeb growled. Sabine could see him posturing, using his height to intimidate. It wasn’t going to work – Luke was used to hanging out with a Wookiee.

“I know, Zeb” Luke said. “And I appreciate you all looking out for her. I know she does too.”

“Are we done threatening Sabine’s boyfriend?” Ezra asked. “Because I don’t know about you, but I’m starving. And I could murder a decent cup of caf.”

Kanan sighed. “How have you not kicked that addiction yet? We haven’t had caf in months.”

Ezra snorted. “That weird tea still has caffeine in it, old man.”

“Commissary’s this way,” Luke said, grinning as he led the men out of the hangar. Together, the seven of them started walking in the direction of semi-decent food and caf. Behind them, Chopper made a rude noise.

“Yeah, Chop, missed you too,” Sabine said, turning to the droid. Eight, now, and Leia and Han were arm-in-arm, coming round the corner ahead of them. Her whole family was together at last.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mando'a stuffs:
> 
>  _Aliit_ = clan/family  
>  _jaig_ = shriek-hawk eyes. A big, badass Mando bird. The design, as featured on Kanan's visor and Rex's helmet, is a badge of valour.  
>  _vod'ika_ = little brother
> 
>  
> 
> Argh! The +1 is fighting me. Still hoping to wrestle it into submission and post it tomorrow, but we'll see.

**Author's Note:**

> There will, at some point, hopefully, be a +1 (or indeed possibly a +2) for this. Right now it's not happening, but I think this is at an okay place to leave things.


End file.
